A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Both a Carnegie Medal and Kate Greenaway Medal awardee, this book is an absolute page-turner. For me, it doesn’t have a very striking intro nor does it have an ending that would leave you staring into space for hours. I even think that at some point it was anti-climactic because I can somehow guess already what “the truth” was that Conor was hiding.

But it’s a page-turner alright, even for me who reads really slow. Further proof on how good a page-turner it was – been having late nights at the office recently; going home at past 10pm or so and yet I was able to finish the book in 5 days!

And even when the ending was a bit expected, it was still a tearjerker.

Oh, did I mention this was a children’s book? ~sheepish grin~

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And so that no one in the office would know I’m reading a children’s book, I asked the Kinukuniya staff to have it wrapped.

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At one point, I doubted that it should be for children. But after having had finished the book, yes, indeed it is for children. Probably ’round the ages 9 to 14 years old.

And I met Green Man again! This is the first time though that I encountered him as scary-looking. In the other books where I’ve encountered him, my image of him is endearing and lovely-looking. At the end of this book though, I still found him endearing even when he was terrible-looking.

My Goodreads rate: 4 stars out of 5.

Finished the book this evening just when the books we ordered from Amazon arrived. This one’s up next!

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